


Isn´t he supposed to be invincible?

by Ejostra



Series: IRONSTRANGE [2]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Hospital, Hurt Tony Stark, M/M, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Battle of New York (Marvel), Stephen Strange still a doctor, Strangers to friends to maybe something more, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 05:04:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16717064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ejostra/pseuds/Ejostra
Summary: "Stephen almost wished that Stark would march in the hospital bloody as he was with a crushed suit and broken bones leaning on Steve Rogers who didn´t look much better himself right through the front door for everyone to see. Because people never saw them showing pain they thought they could never get hurt..." Stephen treats the man who just fell through the wormhole.STORY +  PHOTO MOVIE COMIC! Curious? Good. :)





	Isn´t he supposed to be invincible?

„Dr. Strange, you have a patient in private PO654, it´s urgent.” Steven stopped in his track, turning slow-motion after the voice which wavered when the person realized the unfortunate mental state he was currently in - nervous, exhausted and irritated all at once. His vision of a few minutes of piece with any source of caffeine and actually sitting down vanishing in front of his eyes as quickly as his politeness. He wiped the weariness out of his face, cursing in his mind before he looked at a poor nurse.

“Who?”  
In a single second the woman seemed to realize the reason why she was chosen to pass the message and she completely lost her colour. Stephen could already imagine her running to other nurses and demand an explanation why it had to be her right after she´s done with him, which would probably be as quick as possible.  
“I don´t know. Someone called and I didn´t ask. I´m sorry.” She looked frightened of him, but also lost and tired. It was a long day for all of them, so Stephen took a pity on her and nodded absently, already turning the other way he didn´t want to go.

Hopefully it would be only a spoiled son of a someone rich enough who thought Stephen was the right kind of specialist to check the person who´d been stupid enough to stumble and hurt a toe on the sofa. He could count numerous cases today of people who were healthier than he was, but still burst through the hospital doors screaming for help. Well, the end of the world wasn´t happening that much often, right? And New York was scared enough to lose its shit and make Stephen´s life even more miserable.

“Stephen,” Christine caught his hand and took him further from the family members waiting in front of the rooms. Everything was full tonight, private rooms included. People were everywhere and Stephen was generally trying to be somewhere else than everywhere.  
“Who is it?” he asked her, because it was clear she knew and was here to tell him.

Christine looked him in the eyes with all seriousness, frowning. “It´s Tony Stark. Captain America brought him 10 minutes ago. You need to go and see him. He asked for you directly.”  
“Me?” While it was true he knew the man from some social events, he didn´t get a feeling that he´d managed to impress Stark, mostly because Stephen didn´t need to.  
“What´s wrong with him? Isn´t he supposed to be invincible?”

[ ](https://ibb.co/fHLWpq)

Christine frowned some more. “Don´t be an ass. He saved New York today.”  
“Not alone, right?” Stephen continued to push. It wasn´t just the superhero boy band… A lot of people died today. Officers, agents, firemen, doctors who decided to go and save others in destroyed streets. Stephen treated a lot of people who saved New York. It wasn´t just the work of one man.

Christine kept shaking her head like he was a total asshole and then her gaze fell onto something behind his back. She grabbed him again and made him turn on his heels.  
“Look,” she said and pointed to the TV hanging from the ceiling few meters away from them. Stephen focused his weary eyes on the news. It was hard to concentrate, but he at least tried. A reporter was talking in the corner, but he couldn´t catch the words. There was a camera pointed at the sky on some kind of a… portal?

“Wha…”  
“Just watch…”

Stephen caught a red and gold suit and he pursed his lips together. People around him were watching as well, they all including Stephen formed some kind of a face reaction when they noticed Iron man was holding something what dangerously reminded Stephen of a nuke.  
“What the hell?”

They watched silently as the man flew through the portal and the camera stayed still. Stephen held his breath. He could see the portal being closed and he wanted to turn at Christine with a question, but froze when at the last possible moment a body appeared instead of the gaping hole in the sky. A rapidly falling body. The camera worked only to a certain point where it could follow Iron man as he was closer and closer to collide with whatever was waiting for him on the ground. A reported reappeared in the center of the screen.

“What?” Stephen shoved the hand through his hair. “Is he alive? How? Why is he waiting on me? Shouldn´t he be on the operation table?”  
Christine gave him a small reassuring smile. “He´s mostly alright. Concussed probably. And quite in shock. The problem is his right ankle.”  
“Only the ankle?” Stephen made a face, his professionalism taking over immediately as he left Christine where she was, walking towards PO654. He kinda expected her to follow, but when he noticed she walked the other way, he continued in his route. The PO654 was usually kept empty even in emergencies just for the case as this. It was situated on a different floor as the rest of the private rooms. Stephen should have not been surprised to see Avengers occupying the corridor, all of them except of the green one - Bruce Banner and for a second he imagined the disturbance their presence would cause on any other floor than this one. Stephen glanced them over. They were still in their battle gear, probably didn´t have time to change yet.

“Doctor,” the big guy, Thor shot out from his chair offering his hand, “our shield-brother is in need of your assistance.”  
It wouldn´t be probably alright to facepalm in front of the god. “Yes, I am aware of it. If you don´t mind.” He had to slip against the wall to avoid his big form. Thankfully the blondie seemed happy enough that he was rushing to aid is shield-brother and didn´t take Stephen´s crankiness much to his heart.

When Stephen hadn´t found Captain America sitting outside with others he quite expected him to be inside and he wasn´t wrong. The man and his shield were both right and there hovering near the bed where Stark sat slumped against the wall with closed eyes, his right leg stretched before him. It looked like he concentrated all of his strength not to move it even a tiny bit and Stephen could perfectly understand why.

Both men noticed his presence immediately as he walked in – he didn´t try to be subtle about it - and Stark straightened up a little, greeting Stephen with big grin, too painful around the edges not to be fake. Still a nice try.  
“Hey, doc, been waiting for some time.”  
Stephen couldn´t hold a smirk. If the man was pain in the ass, he was at least always entertaining to meet.

“Unfortunately, I have a lot of patients, Dr. Stark.” His smirk only got bigger. “Everyone has to wait.”  
“Sure,” he waved his comment of, “Steve, honey, you can go now, I promised not to puke or pass out or turn to frog and I kept that promise as best as I could.”  
Stephen didn´t wait for Captain to do as he was told or shake his hand, he wasn´t a fan after all, his eyes instead already scanning Stark as he was speaking.  
“Did any of that actually happened?”  
“We went to have a dinner after a fight,” Captain started to explain before Stark could even open his mouth, “everything was fine, we thought he was alright.” Okay, Stephen could hear a lot of disapproval right there. “But then we returned to the tower and few hours later Jarvis let us know that he lost his consciousness in his workshop while he was trying to get out of the suit.”

Stephen eyed Stark questionably.  
“That´s true,” he admitted, “but it was like 3 seconds so…”  
“More like 15 minutes, Tony.”  
However helpful captain was in this situation, Stephen´s patient started to look slightly irritated. Obviously he didn´t like anyone speaking for him. Time to go.  
“Thank you, captain. I will take it from here. You can wait for Dr. Stark outside with others.”

Rogers nodded, not happy.

“What a mother hen,” Stark rolled his eyes dramatically as they remained alone in the room. The doors closed and the voices behind started to whisper. The man looked like shit. Stephen ran his eyes over him. He was pale and visibly exhausted, possibly with headache and there was still piece of his armor attached to his lower leg and ankle. When Stephen took a closer look, he found himself utter a curse or two. Stark eyes were closely following his.

“I tried to take it off, but I…”  
“… passed out,” Stephen finished for him. The metal was bent down forming a precise imprint of a hand. Someone who obviously didn´t like Stark flying around and wanted to bring him down to Earth. Literally.  
“It is probably broken. Can you say if you are bleeding as well?”  
“I was, but it stopped.”  
“Damn it, Stark and you didn´t think it´s for the best if you stop playing a doctor and actually go and find one?”  
“Wohooo,” Stark shoved his hands in a surrender gesture, “what happened to this nice and polite one I´m just with?”  
“I mean before you tried to do something by yourself and make it more difficult for me.”

Stephen set to work automatically, first of all he forced the man to let Stephen drug him. Testing drug effectiveness while he continued to talk.

“I thought you had your own doctors,” he said curious, stepping at the one side of the bed.  
“I have, but I wanted to see you. This was as good reason as any…” Okay, this was a drug part talking.  
“If you wanted to see me, you could have called. You have my business card.”  
“Do I?”

Yes, a possible concussion.  
“You do.”

Stephen set on the edge of the bed, fishing for his flash-pen inside his pocket.  
“I will check your pupils now, are your experiencing any headache?”  
Stark watched him curiously. “Yes.”  
“So this will be a bit uncomfortable.”

Stephen let his hand rest on Stark´s shoulder, catching the pen in the other one. Whether it was the speed of his movements or those movements itself or the light blinding the man when he was not yet ready, Stark suddenly flinched hard away from him and wasn´t it for the obvious pain in his leg he would probably end on the other side of the room.

Stephen overcame the urge to slap himself remembering what Stark has just gone through.  
“You are okay. Hey, listen to me, Stark. You are in the hospital. You are fine. I´m doctor Stephen Strange,” he kept on repeating the words until he was sure they got through. He let the man grab his shirt, steading himself, anchoring to the reality. This wasn´t the first time Stephen has seen PTSD in action, but a reaction this strong and so soon after the incident was new even for him. He usually didn´t have a patience to go through this with anyone and let it on the nurses to bring the person back. Now watching Stark´s eyes as they slowly cleared, he felt a stab of guilt for not expecting that something like this could happen with Iron man.

“I know who you are, doc. I asked for you, remember?”

Stephen smirked, letting his hands slip from the man´s shoulders.  
“When we are already discussing this, I am totally surprised you remember anything from that evening.”  
The change of topic seemed to work. Stark´s eyes were no longer widely running around the room in the search of the nearest exit and Stephen moved to the man´s ankle slowly not to startle him again. He could already see that the biggest trouble here will be to cure his mind than his body, but that was never his field of expertise.  
“I have a high alcohol tolerance.”  
It was funny to watch how Stark tried to restore his usual camera smile and façade of bullshit and mostly failed when Stephen began the closer inspection on his ankle.  
“I actually must reconsider my attitude towards you interrupting my schedule, when I can finally after so long use this.”  
After a while he grabbed a small chirurgic saw from the table perfectly realizing that after more than 24 hour shift and with wide grin spreading on his lips, he had to look like a murderer on the run.

Stark´s eyes widened a bit.  
“Don´t worry. I won´t cut your leg of, but the rest must go. I hope you have some spare suits somewhere in your closet.”  
Stark chuckled rolling his eyes to the ceiling like he remembered something funny.  
“Actually I do. Instead of the shirts.”

Stephen started to work, every now and then throwing a glance at the man, checking how he was doing. The last thing he needed was for him to jump from the bed when he is cutting iron somewhere around his artery. Lets say that even with the armor being weaken and battered it was not an easy thing to get inside, which was kind of impressive. The fact only gave Stephen a better idea how strong had this creature be when it managed to squeeze it to the shape it was now.

Stephen hissed inwardly when he saw the damage under it. There was a lot of blood but a wound was minor and superficial, it didn´t look so terrible after Stephen cleaned it a bit. The swelling and bruising were a real problem here. The X ray revealed the bone was broken and Stephen couldn´t resist to give the man his professional scolding look.

“Do you really want to tell me you walked around a fancy restaurant with a fracture?”  
“It wasn´t fancy, doc. We had shawarma.”  
“I like to hear you had a good dinner, but next time I and your health would prefer if you first dropped into the hospital.”

Stark looked at him all innocent, but it was obvious what he will do next time. The same stupid stuff as usual.  
“I will bandage it and you will take it easy, no pressure on that leg for at least a week, do you understand?”  
He nodded, his eyes sleepy and a bit unfocused sliding from Stephen´s eyes to his working hands.  
“And don´t sleep yet. You have a concussion.”

The sudden lack of babbling on Stark´s side was a bad sign. Stephen gave him a look and sighed.  
“If you really remember our last meeting, you would know you asked me out,” he said, aware of the reaction his question would cause, but asshole he was, he wanted to keep Starks attention a bit more until he was done.  
Suddenly the man was perfectly awake, blinking with his brown, chocolate eyes wide like a frightened deer in front of the car. Very amusing.  
“And what did you answer?”  
Stephen had to stop his work again curious what he would see on Stark´s face. It doesn´t have to be said that a genuine interest wasn´t one of the things he expected.  
“I didn´t.” Stark was too drunk and too arrogant when he´d asked him. Christine had laughed at him for a month saying that he´d missed the opportunity of his life.

“And if I asked now again?”  
Stephen stiffened, finding those eyes watching him intensely. He could tell Stark was ready to give him one of his shiny smiles and turn it all as a joke immediately if Stephen would politely decline. They could both laugh it of like nothing happened. And Stark would perhaps jump on the first woman walking around just to forget he asked the damn question in the first place.  
“Before you were drunk, now you are high.” Stephen started shaking his head dramatically. “How can I take you seriously?”

Stark laughed. “You are the one who gave me drugs, doc.”

“And you should be thankful, otherwise you would be already crying on captain´s shoulder.” The light quickly disappeared from the man´s face. Yeah, that was a bad thing to say.  
“Okay,” he was finished with the bandage and reaching to the pocket of his jeans. There were still there.  
He grabbed one of his business cards, which looked like he sat on it for weeks, what he indeed did and offered it to Stark as a peace gesture.

“Second chance with the card. Call me if you will remember this time. Any other injuries on you?” Just to make sure. Stephen didn´t want to cause the man more discomfort by going anywhere near the glowing light in his chest if there was no reason.

Stark looked at him like he didn´t hear anything after Stephen stuffed the card in his hand. But then he nodded, his smile slowly returning to his lips. It looked good on him.  
“I will call and no, no other injuries.”  
“Good, you must stay here for tonight.”  
“Someone can check on me at home through the night,” Stark protested.  
“Only if that someone has a medical degree.”

The man laughed warmly and Stephen caught himself following those lips. What are you doing, Stephen?  
“Bruce-bear surely has one.”  
Fine. He would not address Hulk as a bear, but whatever.  
“Hopefully, you don´t mean his green big alter ego.”  
“Doesn´t matter. They both like me.”

Everyone who watched news from time to time knew that the big raging monster had a soft spot for only two people in the world and Iron man was luckily one of them.  
“Your choice, Stark. Just wait for someone who will come and prescribe you more drugs. You will need them.” Although he highly doubted the man didn´t have a storage of those by himself.  
“Why not you?”

Was he really trying to make him stay longer? Because it certainly looked so.  
“My qualification is too high for writing mere prescriptions. I will send a minion.”  
The quick laugh that followed really made Stephen wanted to say something more, but he had a job to do. A snack to eat. Maybe a fine minutes long undisturbed sleep in something slightly more comfortable than a chair.  
“I wouldn´t want to cause you delay, doctor. Thank you for taking care of me.”  
“It´s Stephen.”  
Stark reached with his hand and Stephen accepted, noticing how battered it was he didn´t even squeeze.  
“Tony.”  
Stephen nodded, grabbing his things and some he didn´t even bring vanishing from the room before either of them could say something they would regret later. Outside Avengers didn´t let him go so easily and he had to assure them first that Stark was not about to die anytime soon. Then Stephen took a straight path to the cafeteria, ignoring pretty much anyone who tried to speak with him.

He sat in the corner while waiting on his soup, contemplating about his day and about what has just happened. It was then when he heard a bity remark somewhere near him and the word avengers thrown in the what seemed like a quarrel between two young men.

“No Mike, you don´t understand! They don´t care. What do you think they are doing right now? Chilling in that Stark´s tower while we are sitting here in the hospitals. Maybe it´s not their fault, but you can´t possibly be so blind and call them heroes!”

The man was angry and Stephen could imagine a lot of reasons why, but his anger was aimed the wrong way. Stephen almost wished that Stark would march in the hospital bloody as he was with a crushed suit and broken bones leaning on Steve Rogers who didn´t look much better himself right through the front door for everyone to see. Because people never saw them showing pain they thought they were never hurt.

Like Stephen did. _“Isn´t he supposed to be invincible?”_  
The truth was Stark didn´t have to be there today. He could “chill out” in his tower or any safe place far from New York, but no. He was there and because he was protecting the world, someone crushed his ankle.  
Stephen bit his tongue not to say anything. Stark wouldn´t like them to know he was here.

With a shrieking sound someone moved the chair next to him. He smelled a familiar perfume.  
“Don´t even start, Christine.”  
He met curious eyes of his friend.  
“Start talking.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so that was my first time combining pictures with the story and I hope you liked it! :) Would you maybe like to see Tony calling Stephen and inviting him out? :) Let me know in the comments bellow.
> 
> By the way, for all the ladies (and gentlemen) out there, I would like to present you my new video called [DANGEROUS Hot Avengers Edition](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjqcV9LWwBM), if you have time and feel like it, go and please your eyes (Stephen and Loki are also there!). If you would like to see more, subscribe, like, share... you will make me extremely happy.
> 
> Also if you own any interesting FANART or would like to share what you like (with autor credits), check my FB group [Marvel Fanart](https://www.facebook.com/groups/1209306512568663/) \- it´s whole new and it needs YOU to make it work!
> 
> And lastly, if you don´t know what to read next, search through my other stories! - [Compromised](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15906942/chapters/37077048) and [About Gods and Engineers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13458549/chapters/30851856)
> 
> Thank you and love you! :)


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